I shouldn’t be going back there. I was doing so anyway for the worried little eyes that had asked me if I was dead. The little wildflower girl had caught me resting, half-naked, exposed in their barn. By all rights, she should have been terrified of me. Instead, she had only shown concern.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, I thought you were dead.”

That was the first thing the girl had said to me. There was no running away in terror, no screaming, no pitchforks and torches and burning at the stake. Just childlike innocence and honesty. When Onar’s daughter had found me, she hadn’t been afraid of the monster sleeping in their barn, she’d been worried the monster might be dead.

She had been eleven, barely half my age. I struggled to hold a conversation with people my age, so I had no idea where to even start with this kid. It turned out I didn’t need to. Her honesty and innocence made it work. She led and I followed. We only spoke for a bit. Just a little, maybe half an hour at most. It was only after I had left that I realized how liberating it had been. A single moment of respite, of not hiding behind a web of lies.

That was the reason I had come back here, to Birnstead. Out of this forest, right beyond that bend, there’d be a little farm. A farm that maybe hadn’t yet gotten a new cat. At that farm lived the first person I’d been comfortable enough around to not pretend.

While recalling these fond memories I rebraided my recalcitrant black locks. Three days of wilderness travel had turned my already hard to tame hair into a tangled mess. My lifestyle as a wandering monster hunter didn’t exactly help me at looking presentable, but I still tried. With my incessant pale skin I looked enough like a wraith as it was. I really didn’t need a bad hair day to make it worse.

The quiet rustle of leaves and the earthy aroma of moss faded into the gentle swaying of grasses in heavy ozone-laden air. I squinted into the sun as the darkness of the forest made way for harsh sunlight and oppressive summer heat bearing down on me.

That squinting was a lie, a habit I had developed over time. People did it when faced with sudden bright light, so I did too. Yet while everyone else’s eyesight adapts, for me the path ahead would turn from slightly blurry to a mere haze of colors and shapes no matter what I did.

It was a miracle I managed to find my way with eyesight this bad. A miracle named Fern. Just a nudge in a general direction was usually enough for her to choose the right path. I caressed her neck. Good horse.

I shoved my pointlessly meandering thoughts to the back of my mind before they could get away from me and stopped where I assumed the fence was. My annoying tendency to worry and overthink gets especially bad on hot, sunny days like this. Wandering musings wielded as a distraction from the pain and the debilitating weakness. It wasn’t just my eyes; all of me wasn’t good with sunlight.

Worry nagged at me as I surveyed the yellow-green smudge of fields in front of me. I might have taken a wrong turn somewhere. I might be staring dumbly at a completely different farm. Or maybe what I was looking out over wasn’t even a field at all. It wasn’t that I didn’t recognize anything. It was merely that the vague brown blob a little further to the left was hopefully the barn and not a giant rock. My eyesight was simply that bad.

Not really knowing what I was looking at wasn’t the only thing I worried about. It wasn’t even my greatest concern right now. The wildflower girl knew a little of what I was. It was dumb for me to return here, to a place where so many of my secrets had been exposed, even if only to a child.

At least passing by here isn’t intentional.

I’ve only taken a couple of odd turns.

Yeh, odd turns.

Just a little accident.

Completely un-in-tended.

I shook my head and breathed out hard. I supposed you could call it a sigh, a very frustrated sigh. I hadn’t magically gotten any better at fooling myself, would probably never get better at it. I was far too accustomed to my own lies for that. My entire life had been a lie after all. Since before I was born, really. You could almost say I lied as easily as I breathed.

Almost.

I didn’t breathe. Every breath you saw me take was a lie. That’s how good I was at lying to other people. I hated it. It’s why I had been on the road for... nearly a year now. It was so much easier to hide from your own lies if you remained on the move.

It had been six months ago, that one mistake, that one time that I hadn’t lied. I had let my guard down around her, even when I should have known better. I had been running ever since. The truth meant death. As by some miracle it hadn’t found me yet. Returning here wasn’t just dumb, or a little reckless, it was stupid dangerous.

I scrunched up my nose and tasted the air, hoping to catch even the vaguest hint of her. I didn’t. The hot air caressed my back, the wind coming from the wrong direction to catch much of anything in front of me. Not a trace of her. Not by sight, smell, or sound.

Dumb. Pointless. Suicidal.

I shifted my weight and Fern got the message, continuing on along the path.

Was really fun though, that morning, in their hayloft.

Real scary, but sooo fun.

It would have been so nice had she still recognized me. Doubtful though, with how traumatizing the events from that night must have been. If she remembered anything it would be the raging river and the mud, swallowing buildings whole. It might even be better if she didn’t remember me, safer for me. It would mean a smaller chance of me ending up dead.

Even riding off I was still thinking about her. So yes, leaving here was for the better. If just one instant of honesty did this to me... I wasn’t sure my heart would survive a second time. Who knew, maybe I’d find something less aimless to busy myself with somewhere on the way to home.

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…home?

Aaah… am I getting homesick?

I shook my head in an attempt to get rid of the unwanted bout of nostalgia. I wanted to huff, I wanted to pout, needed to get it out. Just a little bit of childish indulgence. But not here, not this close to civilization, not where someone could see me act out.

Oooh… how hopeless I am.

Just—

“Oy! Vale!” A harsh shout came from behind me, clipped tones, and a tinge of anger.

Ah? That voice!

It can’t be?

Captivated by hope, and with a tiny sliver of fear that it would prove false, I turned around in the saddle. By the fence, right where I had stopped earlier, stood a vaguely person-shaped blur, a kid-sized morsel, smelling ever so subtly of wildflowers caught in a sudden spring gust.

“What the heck do you think you’re doing, passing by without even stopping to say hi?” The wildflower girl leaped over the fence and stomped towards me.

“Shae?” I held in the reins, forcing Fern to a stop.

It‘s her.

It’s really her!

But she’s so bossy. I don’t recall her being that bossy.

The girl's pace quickened, first bounding, then dashing towards me. With a big “Ooof!” she slammed into Fern’s side. Arms wide, she attempted to hug both my leg and all of Fern’s massive ass at the same time.

“Oh gods, it’s really you!” she sobbed, rubbing her cheek on my leg. “I thought I’d never see you again. You just left all cool like and all and I thought I didn’t care but I did and... and...”

Like this, looking up at me with barely held back tears, she sounded a whole lot more like the little girl I knew. I patted her head. My mouth was open, but words refused to come out. I wanted to tell her all the same things. How I’d come back because I’d wanted to see her. Somehow I couldn’t. Those six months had created a distance.

Aaaah, why is this so weird?

Just say something already!

“Allow me to dismount first, yes?” I told her.

Ugh, that was terrible!

“I can not hug you back from up here, you know,” I amended my previous statement.

Even worse.

We had fun before, why is this so awkward now?

I’d spent so long keeping up this mask that it was hard to let go, even when I wanted to. This girl that I had no trouble opening up to before, it was so hard now. Suppressing my embarrassment, I slid down from Fern’s back.

I stumbled, underestimating how much the sun weakened me and slowed my reactions, but hid it by letting the fall carry me into a hug. I might never have done it if I hadn’t tripped. I never hugged. Yet now it was an easy way out, both a means of hiding my unsteadiness and a way to fix the uncomfortable distance between us. I pulled her close and pushed myself up to the tips of my toes to match her height. She wrapped her arms around my back and leaned her head on my shoulder in response.

So big! She’s really grown.

Soon she’ll be taller than me…

Don’t want her to be taller than me!

Just the right height for—

All too soon I was reminded that I was breaking one of my own rules. I never hugged. It was too dangerous. With her youthful neck this tantalizingly close I could feel the pulsing of her blood. Her sweet scent teased my nose. My teeth ached.

I shoved her away from me as fast as I had hugged her.

To offset my sudden breaking of the hug I worked my face into a genuine and gentle smile, safe in the knowledge that no matter how awkward I felt, unintended emotions would never show on my face. Unexpected embarrassment would never flush my cheeks red, sudden fear or startled surprise never widened my eyes, pain never made me wince. My face was a mask, and all it ever showed was what I wanted it to.

All of me was a lie, and so Shae remained oblivious to my awkwardness. Bouncing with excitement she dragged me along with her. “Come on. Come on! We’ve got a little gate over here. You can follow the path to the barn from there.”

Shae guided me along, babbling about her day to fill in for my silence. I shambled after her, my free hand on Fern’s flank, partially to lead my horse, partially for extra support. Today’s sun really was merciless, and it was messing with my coordination more than I cared to admit. Thankfully, their barn wasn’t far.

“You go on ahead, stable Fern and all. I’ll be right there. Just got to wrap up and... stuff.” In front of the door, the little farmgirl gave me a playful shove, then dashed off through the fields.

Aaaah… she even remembers the name of my horse. How sweet!

Did I even tell her that? I don’t recall telling her.

I led Fern inside, glad to be out of the sun. Plenty of light streamed in through the open door, but at least there was shade. That allowed me to recover a little. My footing became steadier, my body no longer reacted with a barely perceptible delay and my eyes became once more capable of seeing more than vague outlines.

I traced a gloved hand along a beam, fingers following the grain of the wood, as I took in the atmosphere. Small as this thing was, the air still held the same mix of old wood, manure, and dried hay as when I’d rested here half a year ago. It wasn’t much of a barn at all really. There was a bit of storage, the hayloft where I had rested, a small pigpen, but not even a proper box for a horse. That made sense. This was only a tiny village after all. Maybe over time, this would grow into something larger.

Aaaah…

Shae had seemed so happy. Happy enough for there to be a slight pause right before she had said stuff. The way she had accentuated that last word made it clear that she would rather be doing absolutely anything other than... stuff. It felt nice, knowing my visit was a welcome distraction, even if I was kind of imposing on them. Dropping in like this in the middle of a hot summer day probably wasn’t very considerate.

Really just her and her dad on this farm, isn’t it?

They must sooo have a ton of work… and here I am bothering them.

I took my time in the barn, recovering from the sun, stabling and brushing Fern. I had already shown up uninvited. Hanging around in front of their door while they hastily finished up the farm work for the day would only make things even more awkward. I supposed I could always offer to help out. I’d rather not though. The sun and I absolutely did not agree. The shade of the barn was just fine.

“Vale? You in here?” the energetic little girl shouted from the open door.

“Yes, yes, coming. Let me just finish brushing off Fern,” I answered.

“Okay. I’m heading inside. Got to get dinner ready. Just drop in when you’re done,” Shae explained. Then she was gone again as fast as she’d popped in. Seconds later her head popped into the doorway once more. “You’re staying for dinner, yeah?”

Back already?

Where does she get the energy to bounce around like this?

Wait?

Staying for dinner!?

“No, no. It’s fine. I’m good.” I tried to brush her off. Internally I grimaced. In my effort to avoid imposing any more than I already had, I’d achieved the exact opposite. Brushing off my horse clearly telegraphed intent to stay the night here. I didn’t even want that.

Aaaah… but a normal night would be sweet.

I wasn’t good enough at lying to myself to keep claiming I was only passing through. But even then, I really didn’t want to stay for dinner. That would only get all kinds of even more awkward.

“You sure? We haven’t gotten a new cat yet,” Shae sang. She tilted her head to accentuate the words and gave me a lopsided grin.

Oh no! The cat…

I kept my face neutral. For this once I had to work to keep my expression passive, instead of having to force it to display emotion. She was just so… incredibly… chipper about this. It was just...

Ugh! How can you be so chipper about that?

I ate your damn cat!